Word: somalia
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Ahmed says he joined a local gang when he was 12 but left after he was pressured to carry a knife and sell drugs. The son of a childminder from Somalia and a retired academic from Kenya, he plans to become a doctor. Edwards is aiming for a legal career. Why have the two of them turned out so differently from friends who are embroiled in gang life? "Most of them come from poorer backgrounds," says Edwards, who then adds what may be the most important factor. "We're smart," he says, "and we've got our education...
...violence. Since gaining independence from France in 1975, the tiny three-island archipelago with a population of 710,000 has suffered 19 coups or attempted coups, while also producing Africa's most wanted terrorist, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed - accused of masterminding the killing of 224 people as leader of the Somalia-based al-Qaeda allied group that bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. It might seem appropriate, then, at first glance, that the African Union on Tuesday responded with force to a threat by one of the islands, Anjouan, to secede. Comoran troops backed by an AU force...
...which it can ill afford. Besides, any sustained military intervention in the country will have to be followed by a robust reconstruction effort, which neither the AU nor the [Comoran] union government can afford." Elsewhere in Africa, AU operations are far more limited, deploying small, ineffective forces in Somalia and Darfur. While the AU did lead efforts to stem post-election violence in Kenya in January, it does little to quell unrest in other areas, such as Congo, Mali, Niger, Nigeria or Uganda, or looming confrontation between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and its observers endorse corrupt elections from Nigeria to Zimbabwe...
...hard-line Islamist movement that ruled Somalia for 6 months in 2006, and which included a significant number of foreign jihadis in its ranks. When the Ethiopians attacked to drive the Islamists out of the capital, they were accompanied by a small number of U.S. Special Forces personnel who hoped to flush out three al-Qaeda commanders responsible for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The bombers had been suspected of sheltering with the ICU. When the militants regrouped in the south, the U.S. saw its chance and launched two separate air strikes, followed by another...
...three men we ran into in June said they worked for Hassan Turki, a senior ICU commander. I'd seen Turki speak on a videotape in early summer 2006, flushed with success after the ICU took over the country. "Tell George Bush we're all terrorists in Somalia," he'd shouted at the camera. "Tell Bush to attack. Tell him we're all terrorists here." Several reports on Tuesday claimed Turki's wishes had been granted, and that he himself was the target of the attack. The Pentagon, however, refused to specify either whether Turki had been the target...